Category: Tasks

Out of the 27 pieces on the Golden Record, the following are the 10 that I would curate, as well as my reasons for selecting them.

1. Senegal, percussion: No words or voices, just pure percussion goodness! Regardless of where you come from, I believe that everyone and everything can react to and enjoy rhythm. The tempo of this piece is also upbeat, exciting, and easy to move along to.
2. Mexico, “El Cascabel”: Another exciting piece with a fast tempo. The high tones and lower tones of this piece pair beautifully together. We can feel the emotion of the Mariachi band even without knowing or understanding the language.
3. “Johnny B. Goode”: If aliens could understand English, they might be moved and inspired by the lyrics of this song–a boy’s dreams of making it big one day. Along with the catchy guitar intro and chorus, this “rags to riches” song is a great example of rock and roll music, a genre that was criticized at first but now adored by many.
4. Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru no sugomori”: The sad, almost haunting melody could show the depth and complexity of human emotion, that we are not always happy and excited. There are moments of sadness, despair, and longing as well.
5. Bach, “Gavotte en rondeaux” from the Partita No. 3 in E major for Violin: Dancing does not always have to be paired with obvious beats and percussion sounds–a gavotte is proof of that. I also believe that classical music is timeless and appreciated by people all over the world. Perhaps the beings out in space would enjoy this genre of music as well.
6. Peru, panpipes and drum: The rhythmic drumming in this piece almost sounds like a heartbeat, which is why I selected it. What if other lifeforms in the universe do not have hearts? Could this piece show them what a heartbeat sounds like? I think so.
7. “Melancholy Blues”: Jazz music, less rigid and structured than classical music, could show that humans are fun and creative. Since an important aspect of this genre is improvisation, showing the universe a jazz piece by the legendary Louis Armstrong could present humankind as a species that is versatile and one that can adapt to others.
8. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement: Perhaps one of the most iconic classical pieces in all of musical history. You do not have to be a fan or frequent listener of classical music to appreciate this piece by Beethoven. The dramatic introduction of strings express anger and frustration, but then with the horns comes along a softer, calmer string melody, which then passionately builds and reverts back to the angry and dramatic melody. The human experience is an emotional one, where in a single moment we feel so many things all at once. This piece can symbolize how we live navigating between the ups and downs of life, torn between feelings of happiness and hope and frustration and despair.
9. China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams”: A slower piece with many pauses and long, drawn-out notes. It could even be a lullaby for some with its calming melody. While the other pieces I selected sound “busier” and more complex, this piece gives a “less is more”, simple but beautiful feeling. Among the chaos and busyness of life, there are also moments of calm and quiet.
10. India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho”: I was mesmerized the moment I heard this piece, and I believe that other lifeforms could be as well if they heard its beautiful melody. If aliens could get goosebumps, I think they would after listening to this piece. Even without understanding the words being sung, the piece is entrancing and haunting.

References

NASA. (n.d.). Voyager – music on the Golden Record. NASA. https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/whats-on-the-record/music/

https://view.genial.ly/6535d569d9f621001190bc37/interactive-image-whats-in-my-bag

(Click on the yellow heart icons to hear the audio, Ctrl-left click on the blue link icons to find where to buy the items/read more about them)

Reflection

In a previous MET course, I learned about genially from some of my classmates, so I decided to use this tool for this week’s task. It actually took me less time than I thought to figure out how to use the website, and I am excited to use it more for this course and others in the future!

Task 1 was about describing the contents of my bag through a visual image with text explanation. I decided that for Task 7, I would use the same visual image as in Task 1 but in a more interactive way that would allow the reader to see and hear the explanation of my bag’s contents. Audio gave the image more “personality”, since the listener could hear my voice and tone when explaining the items. I also added links to where to buy some of the items, or to websites that explained the items in cultural contexts. By having the image as an interactive one that featured both sound and external links, I believe that the reader would be able to gain an understanding of why I have these items in my bag and/or be inclined to buy or search for similar items–consumerism at its finest! It is similar to how some influencers on social media sites will provide links to the items in their posts so that their followers will buy the same items or follow the brands featured/promoted in the posts.

I therefore believe that mode-changing can allow us to influence others/be influenced more than a visual image alone can. I myself have been caught in such traps while scrolling through my social media feeds, clicking on links and sometimes purchasing the items in the links. These actions result in more advertisements of similar items being pushed onto my feeds, and the vicious cycle continues!

Reflection

I initially had many works to chose from for this task. After looking through my iPhone’s emoji keyboard, I decided to chose the most recent work I watched and one that I thought would be easy to translate into emojis. The work is very popular on the streaming service I use, so I assumed that one could easily identify what work I was referring to for this task.

I started off with the title and relied mostly on words and ideas. As I use emojis fairly regularly day-to-day, I thought that this task would be easy; however, trying to translate words into images proved to be quite difficult. I had to consider whether or not the emojis I used had the same association/meaning for others looking at this task, since millennials, gen z and gen alpha sometimes have different meanings/understandings/usages for the same emoji. Furthermore, since the slang used by various generations sometimes differs, this can affect the meanings and nuances of the emojis they use.

It was also a challenge to decide how much of the plot to include in the task. With a detailed plot, more emojis needed to be used, which would make the task much harder, so I ended up describing the plot of the work with a “less is more” mindset.

This task also gave me the realization that the amount of emojis included in the emoji keyboard has increased so much over the years. There were moments during the task where I felt overwhelmed with the sheer amount of choices in keyboard. Fortunately, the Apple emoji keyboard has a search function to find emojis more easily, and that definitely helped me for this task. I also ended up discovering some emojis that were added to the keyboard after recent updates, and I am quite excited to see if I can use them in my day-to-day messaging!

Analysis

I originally thought this task would be difficult since I usually type when producing texts; however, I found it quite easy to pour my feelings and let my thoughts flow freely. Deciding on what I wanted to write about was probably the most difficult part of this task, but once the topic was decided it was fairly easy to get the words down onto the paper. The pen I was using was also a friction erase one, so I could easily fix any spelling or word-choice mistakes I made along the way. There were moments where I considered changing around some sentences, but decided against editing my text because I wanted everything to be as raw and unfiltered as possible; had the text been typed, there would have definitely been more editing done to it.

I believe that writing by hand is often times more spontaneous and untouched than mechanized forms of writing. When typing texts, it is easy to change and delete sections that you may not like without leaving obvious traces of those edits on the final product. When writing by hand, especially using ink, the changes you decide to make to your text are often visible at the end. I also like how raw and in-the-moment writing things by hand can be–imagine a writer, even a detective, jotting things down on a notepad or a napkin as ideas come to them. That is not to say that typed texts are not poetic or romantic! But there is just something about a handwritten letter versus a typed one that hits the heart differently.

My Story

The following is my voice to text story, unscripted and unedited, using the Dictation function on iPhone.

All right, so I’m gonna talk about how I came to be an English teacher in Japan so since high school, I always wanted to be an English teacher and I didn’t know where exactly I wanted to work. I had some teachers that recommended a program called the jet program basically jet program is all a bunch of English-speaking countries. They send some people off to different places in Japan and we work as ALT assistant language teachers And we either work in elementary school, junior high school or senior high school so I already had my mindset on teaching in Japan somehow and then will thanks to the jet program I decided in university I would go into teaching English as a second language at McGill bachelor education so after I graduated in 2016 will just a bit before my graduation I applied for the jet program And it was really like all or nothing either I get accepted or I try and find a job in English teacher in Montreal. The good thing is I got accepted so in 2016 right after I graduated in May I think I left for Japan at the end of July and then I’ve been living in Japan for about seven years now so for about six years, I worked as an assistant language, teacher in elementary and junior high schools in Akita prefecture in Japan. A prefecture is quite a rural area very countryside. A lot of rice fields, a lot of forests Very different image from what people have of you know Japan, like Tokyo, Osaka Kyoto, where it’s very lively lots of people very modern act is very, very very quiet, peaceful place and when I first arrived, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to live in acted permanently, because it was so rural and coming from Montreal, which is a big city. It took some time to adjust to the different lifestyle and the pace of things But you know after a while I got used to it, and I came to appreciate the beauty of Akita the nature, the peacefulness so after six years of working the jet program for the actor city Board of Education I started a new job at Sade women’s junior College where I’m an assistant professor, so I teach English lessons teach. I teach some courses like oral communication, basic English skills I taught writing before Comparative culture courses is very different from my job as an ALT where as an ALTUR team teaching with a Japanese teacher of English. Where is my job now I’m kind of doing everything by myself which means that I decide the textbooks the curriculum I really know I said the goals for all my classes do evaluations and it took some time to adjust it first but it was you know it’s been going really really well and I really do enjoy my job. The age of the students is also very different from what I was used to you know so I taught you know elementary school kids and mostly junior high school now I teach college students and it’s an all girls college so it’s very different kind of the educational setting, which also took some time to adjust but having a good time I really enjoy my life here And you know I’ve decided to live and I to permanently I married someone from Akita and I have a new baby born in August so you know I wouldn’t have imagine my life to be like this you know in 2016, when my eyes were first set on living in Japan, was a very different image of you know my goal of my life in Japan was very different at the time but now I I like where I am I like my job I love my husband. I love my new baby boy, even though he’s a little crying hungry little demon. I love him so much and I’m excited to see you know I’m looking forward to what the rest of my life in Japan will be like, so yeah, that’s the story of me in Japan.

Analysis

There are punctuation marks here and there in the text, but there are many run-on sentences as well. The text is also very “rambly” and the thoughts are not very structured, unlike texts in conventional written English. The many instances where I say “you know”, “yeah”,”so”, and sentences beginning with “and” would not be seen in conventional written texts.

In terms of what is “right” and “wrong”, while most of the content itself is “right”, some proper nouns, particularly those in Japanese, were “wrong” when dictated. This shows the possible limitations of voice to text when dictating using more than one language at a time. Perhaps another voice to text applications could produce more accurate results.

The most common “mistakes” in the text would be the run-on sentences (correct sentences would start with capital letters and end with either periods, question marks, or exclamation marks), and the sentence fragments (sentences that do not follow proper subject-verb grammar structure). While these would not be deemed “mistakes” in spoken English, they are by the standards of written English. Less to none of these “mistakes” would be present had this story been scripted and edited, since preparation of the text would have been made beforehand.

Perhaps the biggest difference between oral and written storytelling is the train of thought when it comes to producing the text. In written storytelling, edits and alterations can be made to produce a text that follows a logical flow of ideas. New or additional ideas and details can be inserted in the “correct” place in the story, in order to keep a good structure. In oral storytelling, the story-teller may go off on a tangent or insert details at random points during their storytelling. Written storytelling is also more likely to get to the point more quickly compared to oral storytelling. My voice to text oral storytelling seems very much like unorganized ramblings; even while recording the story, I found myself struggling with what details to add or expand on!